A Continued Commitment to Security — This Friday is Data Privacy Day, an international effort by governments, businesses and advocacy groups to raise awareness about the importance of staying in control of personal information. A key part of controlling information has always been protecting …

Verizon's iPhone hot spot to cost $20 a month — Using Verizon's forthcoming iPhone as a mobile hot spot is going to cost subscribers $20 a month—that's on top of the required data and voice plans subscribers will already be paying for. — The fee, which is in line with what Verizon charges …

Twitter Tests Self-Serve Ad Platform — Twitter has begun testing a self-serve ad platform with advertisers and agencies it plans to roll out in the first half of this year, and MediaPost got a glimpse. — Clix Marketing Founder David Szetela began supporting a handful of clients this week.

Apple revamps its public website using HTML5 — Apple has relaunched its entire website with a new design using HTML5, adding a darker, glossy navigation bar and speedy new animated page layouts for Mac and iPod pages. — The redesign officially upgrades the site from “HTML 4.01 Transitional” …

New ‘iPad is iconic’ ad touts 60,000 apps — Apple has begun showing a new commercial that highlights a growing number of iPad-specific apps, now pushing past 60,000 titles. — The spot, “iPad is iconic,” highlights such apps as the “fresh” djay virtual turntables, “tickets” …

The future of app stores — App stores, pioneered by Apple, aim to provide ease of payments and discoverability to developers and consumers. However, — do they offer unique advantages that no other payment or discoverability system can match? — is Apple's success transferable to other app stores?

Building Better Social Graphs (continued) — I've been thinking for a while now that there will not be one social graph to rule them all (Facebook) but that we will eventually have a multitude of web/mobile services in our lives, each with a social graph we curate specifically for that service.

Google leases office complex in Venice — The Internet search giant will take over more than 100,000 square feet in three buildings, including one designed by Frank Gehry. Its lease coincides with an announcement that it would hire more than 6,000 workers this year.

Egypt.com: Is It Time to Invest in Egyptian Start-ups? — “We will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders …

Interview: Marco Arment — On my list of horrendously bungled acquisitions, I put Delicious near the top. Since its acquisition by Yahoo in 2005, the biggest user-facing change to the site was a visual refresh in 2008. Even with this rampant feature stagnation, I'd stuck with the site …

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